When I came to process, decided to have a play. Opened one version without touching anything in ACR, then opened a second version with the exposure knocked back by -4EV. Dropped the underexposed image on top of the original and then using a "reveal" layer mask brushed back in the correctly exposed building, leaving the darkened sky. Result:
I think it's probably a bit too wide a DR for the eye to completely believe and if I'd had more time, I might have done it again with a -2EV version.
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Have just realised I forgot to do the roof and gable.
Yeah - that's what I thought: "shame about the roof and gable!"
To be honest, I wouldn't worry about it being "believeable" if you like it. After all, black and white is not "believable" but no-one objects. We are used to seeing B&W images; we are not used to seeing HDR so much.
I like the picture. The danger is that the sky can make it a little "chocolate box" or "1950s technicolor" - if you know what I mean. But is that also due to where we are used to seeing saturated skies without an underexposed foreground?
Never tried an HDR image myself - perhaps I will sometime.
I think I want to use HDR to try and get photos to look more like how the scene actually looked. When I took the photo, my eyes could make out the blue of the sky and the front of the house looked properly exposed as well. However, more limited DR of the sensor meant I had to compromise and the out-the-camera pic didn't actually represent what the scene looked like. However, I'm still struggling to balance HDR between what looks like what I took a picture of, and what looks artifical.
Incidentally, I have mimicked the effect in the past by ensuring the scene looks right for the foregraond, then selecting the sky and adjusting the exposure (in PS) to bring back a bit of detal. This seems to work if the sky is not completely blown - just washed out.
Less hassle than this HDR-thingy - but I'm probably teaching you to suck eggs.
It looks really good, apart from the gable obviously. Spotted that right away, me.
Someone needs to explain to me what "a "reveal" layer mask" is. I am a Photoshop technophobe and proud of it!
The sky to the right below the tree is a bit bright for the rest of the image. What could you do to fix that using your fancy Photoshop tools?
I still like it though. I'll stop posting now, got to out.
Re the bright area below the tree, probably just missed that when brushing the layer back in, like the gable.
Toby - sky selection thing is a technique I've used in the past. I tend to find you get strange effects going on at the edge of the selection where you get a sudden transition between the brightened, selected area and the rest of the photo. Usually works pretty well though - unless you've got a bugger of a complicated sky/foreground junction!
Kev - layer reveal pretty simple. When you've got more than one layer on a pic (say for example you've done a black and white conversion) you then select "layer mask" and "reveal all". You then just select the paint brush and the foreground colour as black. Whatever you brush over will "reveal" the hidden layer. So for example, you would start revealing the colour layer behind the black and white layer, letting you do selective colour.
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